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Need some advice

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Fisher kel Tath said:
5g basic pot. Start small after all, if i had the room for a conical, I would too, but yea, I have hard enough time not getting nagged about having my equipment around as it is...and money too...


Thinking of their Holiday spiced ale, figure i'll start sometime in late september/early october...
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I seem to be encountering similar problems ( $$$ )
Yet I continue to lust after a Blichmann Conical Too...
With the beer brewing idea planned next, room seems to be at a premium.
I am thinking of an IPA to start...Well, back to reading as this brewing seems to be a finicky master!
 
Tannin Boy said:
Well, back to reading as this brewing seems to be a finicky master!
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Nah... I did extract brews, and I found that they were about as complicated as following a recipe for, let's say, making soup; and, to my mind, beer is way less finicky than turning grapes into wine!!!
 
Meriadoc said:
Nah... I did extract brews, and I found that they were about as complicated as following a recipe for, let's say, making soup; and, to my mind, beer is way less finicky than turning grapes into wine!!!
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Interesting!
I found wine making to be easy, yet I have a great supplier that balanced the bulk grapes prior to my purchasing..Then first ferment and then into barrel for another 6 months and for a first try without blending wasn't bad at all..

Now this stuff is not Robert Mondovi, but certainly as good as Wood-bridge or a bit better...

A good first attempt for not knowing much about brewing..In all honesty, the people that sell me supplies also own the oldest winery in New York State and have been very kind to me, let alone patient....
 
So what yeast should I go with >.>


Muntons (6g)
Fermentis Safale US-05 (11.5g)

Wyeast American Ale 1056 Propigator
Wyeast American Ale 1056 Activator

White Labs California Ale 001
 
Most ales I don't use a secondary. I wait until they're done and then bottle. Usually my ales finish in a week or less, and I let them sit there for another week or two while I grumble about cleaning bottles. I try to get them bottled before a month goes by.

If you want to do a secondary, I'd say wait until the krausen has fallen and visible activity is over, then wait another couple days. Moving beer too soon can lead to an excess of acetaldehyde (green apple) and diacetyl (movie popcorn butter).
 
So you do have a bottling bucket? I'll go straight from primary to the bottling bucket when I'm ready. I would not mix the priming sugar in with the trub that is in the primary.
 
Ah. Yeah that works, I've done that. One more racking than you need, but as long as you don't pull any air into it you'll be fine.
 
That works great. I have a bottling bucket with a spigot so that is nice to use, but if you have no problems bottling out of a carboy then safe yourself a step and only rack once.
 
Hmmph... Those are some tough ones (what labels were they? - so I can avoid them). Soaking in an ammonia solution also can be really effective at getting rid of glue so you might try that as an alternative. If that fails you can scrub them with a scouring pad, but I won't work that hard for a bottle.
 
Medsen Fey said:
Hmmph... Those are some tough ones (what labels were they? - so I can avoid them). Soaking in an ammonia solution also can be really effective at getting rid of glue so you might try that as an alternative. If that fails you can scrub them with a scouring pad, but I won't work that hard for a bottle.
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I reuse commercial bottles, so their from Darkhorse Brewery, all of them seem to have the same kind of labels, the glue feels like rubber cement...
 
brought the bucket up from the basement, so that when the time comes it's been sitting around where it'll be racked from, and took a refractometer reading.

Suprisingly low ABV beer this is supposed to be...

sg was supposed to be in the 1.042-.046 and finish in the 1.010-.012 range

reading shows 1.010 which is within the degree of error, so abv max is 4.7% anyway, mine is 4%
 
Medsen Fey said:
Hmmph... Those are some tough ones (what labels were they? - so I can avoid them). Soaking in an ammonia solution also can be really effective at getting rid of glue so you might try that as an alternative. If that fails you can scrub them with a scouring pad, but I won't work that hard for a bottle.
Click to expand...

I know that kind of glue and I usually take those bottles back for deposit... what a pain it is, that crap will gum up a plastic scouring pad, I think the stainless steel scrub pad will take it off but I'll never get it off the stainless steel!

Typically, I soak my bottles in a bucket of hot water while they're full of hot slightly soapy water for about 20 min while I scrub them with the bottle brush and then I take the dull edge of a knife to the labels, the good ones come off easily like that and the annoying ones take a scouring pad, the truly nasty labels need a solvent like Goo Gone citrus cleaner, but I don't like putting toxic materials near my wine bottles.

I haven't tried ammonia yet but I bet laquer thinner will do the trick, that DOES work on contact cement in my experience.
 
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